The invention pertains to a data processing unit for the telemetric adjustment of an implant and/or for telemetric communication between the implant and a data device.
It is already known that the technical data of an implant and the patient-dependent data about the patient""s clinical history can be stored on a chip card so that the respective treating physician has the current data available at each followup examination occurring after implantation. The corresponding data are manually entered into a data device and are stored on the chip card via a card reading device connected to the data device. The reading of the data from the chip card occurs in the reverse direction.
Disadvantageously for data transfer in known processing is that no automatic storage of the data occurs on a data carrier to be handed over to the patient. Automatic followup of the implant between the clinic medium and the implant manufacturer is not provided.
In addition, it is known that implants such as, for example, pacemakers are telemetrically adjusted, and the corresponding status data are read out of the implant.
The problem for the invention is therefore to construct a data processing unit for telemetric adjustment of the implant and/or for telemetric communication between the implant and a data device in such a way that simplified and improved processing of the patient-based data (status data from the implant) is made possible, as well as provision of implant-based data (administrative data from the implant).
For the solution to this problem, the invention has the characteristics of claim 1.
The data processing unit in accordance with the invention permits, in a simple way, the provision of data stored on a portable data carrier, whereby medical or technical status data content is stored on a first data carrier for delivery to the patient and whereby implant-based administrative data about the implant are stored on a second data carrier in order to remain in the data device or for delivery to an authorized person. The administrative data can preferably contain followup information which can be regularly read out by a representative of the implant manufacturer. Rapid access to the current adjustment data of the implant and optionally in addition to the patient data is made possible for the treating physician.
All patient-relevant data can advantageously be stored on the first data carrier whereby, in addition, measurement data which have been determined by cyclic measurements of the implant itself can then be compared with previous patient data stored on the data carrier which represent a previous time interval, and evaluated during a followup examination of the patient. This evaluation preferably occurs in the data device.
The second data carrier collects the administrative data of several implants and thereby permits a defined and physically separate compilation of the implants for subsequent evaluation of the same at a fixed location. One thereby ensures via the control program implemented in the data device that only administrative data are stored on the second data carrier and that only the current status data, in the first data carrier.
The invention permits the automatic storage of relevant data (status data, administrative data) in the first or second data carrier.
The administrative data of an implant are preferably stored in the first data carrier and are transferred to the second data carrier by means of a control program immediately after implantation or on the occasion of initially writing on the first data carrier, and stored there. The data are thereby temporarily stored on the data carrier. These accumulating administrative data about the implants can then be read from the second data carrier at defined intervals by an authorized person for followup purposes and further processed. The data carrier advantageously serves for control of the communication or for mediating during communication between the first and second data carrier as well as between these and the implant.
One single data device advantageously serves for processing the data, whereby the status data and the administrative data are stored in different or temporary memory regions. Communication between the data device and the implant is made possible by means of the presence of a telemetry unit whereby current or new data can be rapidly stored on the corresponding data carriers.
According to a further development of the invention, the data device has a card reading device to which two chip cards are assigned for the memory of status data, on the one hand, and administrative data on the other hand. The card reading device preferably has a PCMCIA interface so that it is integrated into the data device in a space saving manner.
The data device is advantageously constructed as a portable data carrier (laptop) and the card reader as the PCMCIA card reader with a receptacle for a chip card in standard size (credit card size), on the one hand, and with a receptacle for a chip card in minichip card format (GSM card) on the other hand. Herewith, the presence of a second large volume card slot is avoided.
In addition, the problem which is the basis of the invention is to indicate a process for processing the data between a data device and an implant so that data processing and data evaluation are improved.
For the solution of the problem, the process in accordance with the invention has the characteristics of claim 9.
The advantage of the process is to be seen in that the status data and the administrative data are processed independently of each other in the data device and are stored according to the requirements of the respective data carrier. Herewith, the data existing in the portable data carrier in safeguarded form can be removed from the data device and optionally supplied to an additional data device for further processing of the data.